Question for Scott Rouse re: Retroclones

[Piratecat]

Tell me, Joe, because I'm a little curious; after saying yesterday that someone stealing WotC IP would be "not only hilarious, but sweet sweet karma," why exactly do you expect anyone from WotC to ever respond to you? I don't speak for anyone but myself, but I've got to say, I think that qualifies as burning your bridges.

 

[joethelawyer]

Tell me, Joe, because I'm a little curious; after saying yesterday that someone stealing WotC IP would be "not only hilarious, but sweet sweet karma," why exactly do you expect anyone from WotC to ever respond to you? I don't speak for anyone but myself, but I've got to say, I think that qualifies as burning your bridges.

They don't have to like me to respond to posts I make here which others are interested in hearing the answer to. Hell, if the only people here who could respond to my posts were those who liked me or what I said here, I would only get responses from like 2 people and a Mod.

 

[Ourph]

Sometimes stuff like that is a good PR move. If the retroclones are nothing more than a pimple of the ass of the RPG industry, of no real concern to WOTC, with all the bad press they've gotten lately it might be a good play to come out and say it's no big deal, retroclone-publish to your heart's content.

Considering that retroclones have been around for upwards of 3 years now with no legal challenge of any kind (and only a small but vocal minority of competing publishers with obvious conflicts of interest even raising the question), I'd say WotC have already made a pretty clear statement on the subject.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

They don't have to like me to respond to posts I make here which others are interested in hearing the answer to. Hell, if the only people here who could respond to my posts were those who liked me or what I said here, I would only get responses from like 2 people and a Mod.

But you want them to do something that would be "a good PR move". Don´t you see that - coming from you - this thread looks simply like a setup to eventually be able to say "lol, Wotc don´t care about PR and us fans?"

 

[Aus_Snow]

Considering that retroclones have been around for upwards of 3 years now with no legal challenge of any kind (and only a small but vocal minority of competing publishers with obvious conflicts of interest even raising the question), I'd say WotC have already made a pretty clear statement on the subject.

Quite. Not only retroclones themselves, in PDF and print, but supplements, adventures aplenty, and magazines (yes, plural), not to mention blogs, forums, and so on. Lots and lots of product, discussion, visibility. . .

Yep, I'd call it 'pretty clear' as well.

 

[joethelawyer]

But you want them to do something that would be "a good PR move". Don´t you see that - coming from you - this thread looks simply like a setup to eventually be able to say "lol, Wotc don´t care about PR and us fans?"

People are saying that anyway, even moreso after the pdf debacle. So if the retroclone movement is inconsequential, and WOTC of showing its acceptance of retroclones by non-action, and yet folks like Clark Peterson of Necro still are reluctant to publish for OSRIC in part because of his opinion of its shaky legal ground, it can't hurt to say Retroclones are fine with WOTC. They can only look good by doing so.

 

[Remathilis]

People are saying that anyway, even moreso after the pdf debacle. So if the retroclone movement is inconsequential, and WOTC of showing its acceptance of retroclones by non-action, and yet folks like Clark Peterson of Necro still are reluctant to publish for OSRIC in part because of his opinion of its shaky legal ground, it can't hurt to say Retroclones are fine with WOTC. They can only look good by doing so.

Perhaps Clark means (and I don't claim to know his mind) that OSRIC is fine as a fan-based community project in which people make back the cost of publishing/printing, but if someone tries to sell OSRIC to Barnes & Noble and make a living off it, WotC will think differently.

Either way, I'll eat my hat if someone from WotC comes through here and says "Retros are fine and dandy, make all you want!" or "Actually, the C&D letters are in the mail, and we're dispensing a virus to replace all copies of Labyrinth Lord on the internet with a link to our Keep on the Shadowfell quickstart."

 

[Morrus]

 

[jdrakeh]

Yeah, this. After reaction to other announcements of the past year, I suspect WotC is now smart enough to know that there are simply some people who, no matter what, will never be pleased with any edition of D&D that isn't Their Favorite Edition and, thus, that any time spent trying to woo such people by exercising corporate transparency is time wasted.

 

[JohnRTroy]

Regarding OSRIC, I can't speak for Clark but I think I can see it like this.

The problem with OSRIC, as opposed to something like, say, C&C, is this.

C&C appears to have been started from the System Reference Document, and then tweaked it so it emulates 1e play without actually being 1e rules--such as adding back level limits, changing the XP rules, etc. There are a lot of compromises involved here. You can clearly see the path they took in developing the game.

OSRIC appears to be using the SRD as the rights to use the licensed trademarks and IP to justify creation of a 100% 1e compatible rule-set. PJ really nailed it. It doesn't look as derived from the existing SRD base, rather an attempt to reverse engineer 1e D&D fuller instead of just making a lot of variant rules for 3e.

From a legal standpoint, it could appear that they are trying to take a closed property (the 1e/2e game system), and make it open by combining the "no copyright for games" law, with the OGL's viral nature, using the SRD'd version of D&D to justify this. But since WoTC has never opened up this property, they could choose to argue this in the court. Maybe they haven't touched the "retro-clones" because they don't consider it a threat. I have a feeling the first person who releases a non-underground 4e clone and tries to use the OGL SRD to defend it is gonna get stomped.

But I can understand why Orcus and others are wary of the use of OSRIC. I think there are limits to the OGL and what the SRD can be used for.